him from your mouth, that’s what I used to do to her. He’s upset about his mother, his mother,” he muttered to Ivan.
“But she was my mother, too, I believe, his mother. Was she not?” said Ivan, with uncontrolled anger and contempt.
The old man shrank before his flashing eyes. But something very strange had happened, though only for a second; it seemed really to have escaped the old man’s mind that Alyosha’s mother actually was the mother of Ivan too.
“Your mother?” he muttered, not understanding. “What do you mean? What mother are you talking about? Was she? … Why, damn it! of course she was yours too! Damn it! My mind has never been so darkened before. Excuse me, why, I was thinking, Ivan. … He he he!”
He stopped. A broad, drunken, half-senseless grin overspread his face.
At that moment a fearful